


Mercutio Is Burning

by Chrononautical



Category: due South
Genre: M/M, cw: suicidal thoughts, episode: s02e07 Juliet Is Bleeding, ghost!louis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-09
Updated: 2017-12-09
Packaged: 2019-02-12 17:31:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12964686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chrononautical/pseuds/Chrononautical
Summary: Detective Jack Huey is haunted by his partner's death. Literally.





	Mercutio Is Burning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jodie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jodie/gifts).



> Jodie requested Fraser/Ray V and Huey/Louis featuring ghost Louis for her dSSS present, obviously because she wanted to give me a gift. I hope this story is what she had in mind, because it was an absolute joy to write. I love Huey, Louis, and ghosts of all kinds. Naturally, given the prompt, here there be spoilers for Juliet is Bleeding.
> 
> One thousand thanks to Verushka70 for the incredible beta. This story would have been a mess without them. All remaining errors are my own.

Water ran from the tarnished faucet and swirled down the industrial porcelain sink. Detective Jack Huey watched the endless flowing stream wasting away down the drain. Bracing himself with one hand on either side of the sink, he took a deep breath. Then another. The water he’d splashed on his own face dripped down his cheeks and fell from his chin. Once it hit the sink, it was washed away, just like everything else. 

“That rookie wasn’t tampering with evidence on purpose, you know.” 

Gasping, Huey snapped his head up. Staring into the mirror, he saw the impossible. Laughing gray eyes without a hint of death’s milky cataracts. The quirk of a smile on full, living lips. Even the familiar voice didn’t make sense. 

“What’s the matter, partner? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Huey’s mouth opened and closed wordlessly. Louis stood behind him, wearing the beat up leather jacket that never kept him warm enough in winter. The jacket that was in six different evidence bags because it had been blown up in a car bombing. The car bombing that had killed Louis. 

“Seriously, though, man, you need to calm down. You’ll get Zuko. No judge in Chicago’s gonna let him walk on the conspiracy charge, whether or not you manage to pin him for the bomb. Remember, I’m the loose cannon. You’re Danny Glover.” 

It was such an old riff, one they’d tossed back and forth for years, that Huey answered without thinking. “Fuck you, Lethal Weapon, I’m two years younger than you are. You only say that crap because I’m black.” 

“Yeah.” Louis smiled that shit eating grin he got when a suspect managed to hook themselves during an interrogation. “But you’re going to catch up now. Before you know it, you’ll be two weeks away from retirement, and I’ll still be a young gun. So play it cool. This case needs Murtaugh, not Riggs.” 

Huey couldn’t take it anymore. Whipping around, he meant to stare Louis straight in the face, demand an explanation, but the bathroom was empty. There was nothing but white tile and the running water in the sink. 

That was the first time Huey saw the ghost of his dead partner, but it wasn’t the last. 

When the Mountie found an alibi for Zuko, letting him walk on the actual murder charge, Louis was right behind Fraser telling Huey to stay cool. When Vecchio sat stewing at his desk, convinced that he should have been the one to bear the brunt of the blast, Louis grinned and kicked the back of his chair. When they handed the flag to Mrs. Gardino, Louis put both of his hands on his mother’s shoulders and shed a single tear. 

No one else seemed to be able to see him, though. Huey knew he ought to talk about it with the department shrink. He had to see the guy anyway, that was mandatory after the death of a partner, so he might as well mention the fact that he was losing his mind. That he was seeing visions of his dead partner. That he was hearing voices. He might as well risk getting taken off the Zuko case and shoved into a padded room where he couldn’t get justice for his partner’s murder. 

Of course Huey didn’t say a word. He was used to keeping secrets about Louis. After all the weekends they’d spent holed up somewhere together, the game on the TV, beers in hand, easy excuses ready for anyone who asked what they’d been up to. After all the stolen kisses in the shadows. After constantly talking about women, the parade of Louis’ exes, pretending to rank potential wives as though anyone of the feminine persuasion could be more than number two million on his list. As though anyone but Louis could be the one he was meant to be with. Yeah, Huey knew how to keep a secret. Anyway, the last thing Louis would want was people finding out about them. That much had always been clear. 

“You think they’re fucking?” 

Huey kept his head bent low over the desk. Filled out his paperwork carefully. Didn’t look up. But he never could ignore Louis. “Who?” he murmured, focusing on the lines of ink stretched across the white paper, unable to read a word. 

“Vecchio and Fraser. I didn’t pay much attention before, but their fights always get worse when there’s a chick involved. You ever notice that?”

The pen stopped moving. Blinking, Huey forced it to start again. “None of my business,” he mumbled. 

“I’m just saying. Maybe you could talk to him.” 

“It isn’t about the girl. Vecchio thinks that by dancing with her he got you killed.” Glancing up nervously, Huey looked around the bullpen to see if anyone was watching him talk to himself. No one seemed to care. Louis leaned back in a chair that he wasn’t really sitting in and winked, tossing an imaginary pen in the air. 

“I’m not talking about Vecchio. He’ll get over it. Or he won’t. Vecchio’s not my problem. You should talk to the Mountie.”

Turning back to his paperwork, Huey forced himself to write. “I tried. He’s the guy who couldn’t shoplift Milk Duds, remember? It’s not his fault he wants us to arrest Zuko by the book.” 

“Jack.” 

Huey checked the box to verify that a qualified forensic expert had confirmed that the bomb found on Zuko’s property matched pieces that belonged to the explosive device found in the wreckage of Vecchio’s car. 

“You gotta talk to someone. I don’t know how this being dead thing works, but I get the feeling I’m hanging around for something specific. After that, I can’t be here for you. Bottling this shit up is killing you, so talk to the Mountie. Hell. You were the one who always wanted to tell people.” 

Louis looked uncertain. That was how Huey knew he was a hallucination, not a ghost. In the ten years they’d been together, Louis Gardino had never looked uncertain once. Confused, maybe, but the man was nothing if not confident. Huey turned back to his paperwork. 

“You could still go, you know,” Louis said. “To one of those places you used to talk about. Where you could be a cop and date a cop without having it be a thing. Find somebody who would hold your hand at the movies or whatever it was you wanted. Hey, maybe you could hook up with the Mountie. Vecchio seems serious about playing Romeo for Irene Zuko, so maybe Fraser’s free. Probably jerks off with maple syrup, but even I gotta admit the guy’s a looker.”

Huey didn’t answer. That didn’t deserve a response. 

Part of Huey was certain that Louis would disappear in a flash of light the moment they finally cuffed his killer. Then he thought getting Zuko for anything, even the murder of his sister might do the trick. Unfortunately, they never got to test that theory, because once again Vecchio made it all about him. Killing Irene was an accident, so a guy who’d had dozens of other people killed couldn’t go down for it. Sometimes, negotiable as his morals were, Vecchio could be just like Fraser with his heart of gold. 

Whatever the reason, Louis didn’t disappear. They had the funeral, made the collar, found whatever justice there was to be found in this fucked up city, and Louis’ ghost still haunted Huey. Drinking alone was bad, but Huey wasn’t really drinking alone if Louis was standing there in a leather jacket that wasn’t burnt to scrap. 

“Why are you still here?” he asked the apparition. 

Smiling tightly, Louis said, “I thought you liked my gorgeous mug.”

“Your deadpan attitude is killing my mood.” Tipping another two fingers of whiskey into his glass, Huey took a long sip. It didn’t burn going down. He’d probably had enough, if he couldn’t feel the burn. 

“This a party, Jack?” 

Blinking slowly, Huey took another drink. “How much of it did you feel? The fire, I mean. Coroner said you died quick, but they always say shit like that to family.” 

Louis didn’t answer. Instead he said, “Pour me one of those.” 

Obediently, Huey got down a second glass, dropped a few ice cubes into it, and splashed some whiskey over the rocks. Louis didn’t like his whiskey neat. Louis like everything as rough and tumble as possible. 

The ghost reached for the glass, but his hand passed right through it. “Damn,” he said. “I really thought that might work.” 

Huey laughed bitterly. “Guess there’s no booze in the afterlife.” 

“I wouldn’t know.” Louis scowled. “I told you, man, there’s something I gotta do here before I go find out the secrets of the universe or whatever.” 

“What?” Huey peered at him intently. “What are you waiting for, Louis?” 

“I don’t know!” Louis threw his arms in the air, turning around in frustration. Then he ran his fingers through those thick, sandy curls. Huey missed touching those curls. Missed the way they felt in his hands. 

Pouring himself another drink for courage, Huey drew his service weapon and put it on the kitchen counter. “That’s okay, Louis. I got an idea.” 

“Fuck.” Louis’ ghost froze, staring at the gun on the tabletop. “Fuck. No. What are you going to do?”

“What I always wanted to do,” Huey said, swallowing down one last drink. “We’re gonna go away together, Louis. You and me.” 

“The hell we are! It doesn’t work like that! What makes you think it works like that?” 

Huey gestured with his empty glass at the empty space that seemed full of the specter of Louis Gardino.

“Okay! Okay, so I’m a ghost. Ghosts are real. That don’t mean you should kill yourself! Maybe you only get to be a ghost if you’re offed by someone else. We don’t know! If I don’t know how it works, you sure as hell don’t.” 

Huey checked his gun. “We’ll find out together. Partners.”

“No,” Louis said. “No way.”

Looking up at his partner, at the only person he’d ever really loved, Huey smiled tentatively. “It’s not your choice, Louis. It’s mine.” 

Louis eyes were wide and wild as Huey chambered a bullet. “Okay!” he said quickly, hands in the air. “Okay! I can’t stop you, but you gotta do this right. It sure as shit won’t work if you do it this way.” 

Huey rolled his eyes. After ten years, he could tell when his partner was playing for time. 

“I’m serious, man. I’m a ghost. What can I do, radio dispatch? There’s no help coming, and I can’t grab the gun. What’s it hurt to wait until midnight? But there’s, like, mystical ghost reasons. Really.”

“You think I’ll sober up and change my mind,” Huey said. 

Louis licked his lips, his hands still in the air like this was a liquor store robbery. Huey glanced at the clock. It was eleven fifteen. 

“Fine.” Putting the gun on the table, Huey poured himself another drink. Watching the slow flow of amber liquid from one container to another, he thought about conservation and change. “Midnight.” When he raised his glass to salute his partner, the ghost was gone. 

For a few minutes he really was drinking alone. Time seemed to warp and stretch strangely so that every tick of the clock took two years. The last minutes of his life slipped by, and waiting for them to end was an agony. 

At five minutes to midnight, there was a knock on the door. 

Drunk and disoriented, Huey didn’t know what to do. Hiding the gun and answering the door would have been safe. Staying quiet and hoping whoever it was would go away seemed smarter. Putting the muzzle against his neck when a key turned in the lock was pure panic. It was four minutes to midnight, and no one but Louis had a key to Huey’s place. 

“Stop,” Louis ordered, “It isn’t midnight.” 

At least the ghost was back. Huey didn’t want to be alone. Unfortunately, the ghost of Louis hadn’t been the one to come through the door. That was Fraser, his hands in the air, slowly approaching Huey, one measured step after another, inching forward like a second hand on the clock. 

“Please pardon the intrusion, Detective Huey,” the Mountie said, all careful politeness and calm, measured words. “Detective Gardino informed me of the location of your spare key, and when you didn’t answer the door, I took the liberty.” 

“Get out of here, Fraser.” Huey didn’t have time for the Mountie. Three minutes to midnight, and he didn’t want to spend it playing talk-the-jumper-off-the-ledge with a Canadian cop. There wasn’t a ledge, and a guy had a right to use his own weapon in his own home. This was America, after all. 

Just like that, an American cop sidled into the room, grinning that big, insincere smile of his. “Huey! Buddy! Heard you were having a party.”

“Private party, Vecchio. What are you even doing here?” 

“Perhaps this might be a more comfortable discussion if you holster your firearm, Detective,” Fraser said. The Mountie was fresh faced as always, but Vecchio had an old Bulls t-shirt on under his jacket. Clearly the clothes horse hadn’t been given time to change before rushing over. Huey couldn’t understand why they would do that.

“The Mountie can see me,” Louis said. “Sometimes. I don’t know how it works.” 

As if in confirmation, Fraser’s eyes flicked over to where the ghost stood on Huey’s right.

“That true?” Sweat slicked Huey’s palm, but it didn’t affect his grip. Neither did the fact that he was so drunk that blinking seemed to take a year. He glanced at the clock. Still three minutes to midnight. 

“Yes,” Fraser said, without missing a beat. “I think we would all be a great deal more comfortable if you simply put the gun down, Detective. Then we could share a drink and talk about what is bothering you.” 

“You’re going to have a drink?” Huey didn’t know the ceiling from the floor. He was wasted, dizzy, and it was two minutes to midnight. 

“Well.” The Mountie hesitated. “I admit I would prefer water or milk if you have any, but I’m quite willing to join you in a small glass of whiskey if that would encourage you to put the gun down.” 

“Fucking Fraser. Tell him you can hear me. Huey thinks he’s crazy! Look, you don’t want Vecchio to know, fine. Just say something dumb about hunting antelope.” 

Once again the Mountie’s eyes flicked over to Louis’ ghost and he licked his lips. Finally, he said, “Did you know that there are over ninety distinctive species of antelope indigenous to the African continent? Of course, I have only been privileged to see them here in the Lincoln Park Zoo, when Ray insisted I play the tourist for the day.” 

“Forget antelope, Benny!” Vecchio dropped the smile and looked at his partner like the guy was crazy. Huey’s fingers tightened on the weapon, knowing he was sane. “Listen, Huey. This is about Louis, right? Gotta be. So why don’t you put that gun where it belongs?”

“What do you mean?” Huey couldn’t breathe. He wasn’t crazy. It was real. It was all real. One minute to midnight and then he was going to be with Louis. 

“Put the gun on me.” Vecchio thrust his chin out like a challenge. Louis used to do the same thing. It was one of those Little Italy gestures they shared. “The bomb was meant for me. I’m the one who let Zuko walk for killing Irene. This is all my fault.” 

Shaking his head, Huey looked at Ray properly. For a guy who should have been a used car salesman, not a cop, he seemed awfully sincere. He was willing to take a bullet to make things right, but that wasn’t what needed to happen. “Ray. It’s not about blame. We’re gonna be together.” 

Vecchio blinked. “What? You and Gardino?” 

“Yes.” Fraser actually looked annoyed with Louis’ ghost. “I rather thought that might be your intention.”

“No,” Louis said. “No, it’s not going down like this. Life is life, Huey, and I’m not going to stand here and watch you give that shit up. I don’t know what comes next, and I don’t know what this is, but I do know that it isn’t life.”

Huey swallowed. “It’s my choice.” 

“Yeah, but not now. I’ll be there.” Louis’ eyes widened, as though he suddenly understood something. “Really. Ten years from now, a hundred years from now, when your time comes, I’ll be there. I know that much. Didn’t know I knew it, but I do. Until then, you gotta live. You have to eat as much of that awful spicy Korean cabbage as you can, bear with the Cubs through yet another losing season, and slog through a hundred more dumb domestic violence cases until you find one person you can actually help. That’s what I want for you. Live. Please.”

Taking a deep breath, Huey looked at the clock. Midnight. “What I want never seems to matter.”

Louis stepped close. His hand closed around Huey’s, over the gun. Huey couldn’t feel the touch at all. “It matters. This is why I’m here. This is what I gotta do.” Glancing back over his shoulder at the Mountie, Louis squared his shoulders. “I love you, Jack. Always have. You’re my one in six billion.”

When he closed his eyes, Huey could almost feel Louis’ lips on his. They’d never kissed in front of anyone before. Louis had never once said those words to him. He was right. It mattered. “I love you.” 

Smiling, Louis seemed to fade away, like mist into sunlight. Somehow, Huey’s gun was in Fraser’s hand. Vecchio was staring at Huey like he’d grown a second head. 

“Did I just see?” Ray took a swig straight from the half empty whiskey bottle on the counter. “Could have sworn I saw—” Taking another long pull, he shook his head. “I didn’t see nothin’. You gonna be okay, Huey?” 

“Yeah, Ray,” Huey said. Walking to the sink, he poured himself a glass of water, offering a second to Fraser. “I’ll be fine.” 

In the end, the lie proved true. Jack Huey lived his life, and he didn’t see his partner again for another forty years.


End file.
